


Letters in Binary

by PockySquirrel



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/pseuds/PockySquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tensou and Alpha both lived in the Command Center and were the best of friends, until Zordon's plans for the future of the Morphing Grid changed everything. A look through the history of Power Rangers from a slightly different perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters in Binary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



> Thanks to Rivulet027 for the beta!

Zordon's Command Center lay still and silent. Long gone were the days when it bustled with noise and activity, the hub of resistance against Rita Repulsa and her armies. The days when Zordon himself had still been able to freely walk the halls of his own fortress. 

The plasma tube that loomed over the Command Center's epicenter was presently blank, a passing energy storm near Mars having forced a communications shutdown. Zordon would likely spend most of his time in a state of deep meditation on the other side of the dimensional rift, a means of keeping the isolation from driving him to madness in a place where time had absolutely no meaning. 

And while time no longer had any meaning for Zordon, it did still have meaning for the other inhabitants of the Command Center, who were left with an abundance of it on their hands.

Tensou opened his back panel, extending a pincered mechanical arm that reached forward to carefully pick up his knight from the chess board and move it forward. Alpha's blinking optical visor regarded him from the opposite side.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked.

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have done it," Tensou retorted. 

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you." Alpha moved his piece quickly, exploiting an opening his opponent had apparently not noticed. "Check."

Tensou emitted a loud buzz of annoyance. 

One of the control consoles started beeping, and Alpha abandoned the game to attend to it, the smaller robot trailing after him. 

"The storm is passing and we should be able to re-establish contact with Zordon shortly," Alpha announced. 

"Good," Tensou said. "It was starting to get too quiet around here."

A few minutes of waiting and a few more of fiddling with the controls, and Zordon's familiar visage finally reappeared in the plasma tube. 

"Welcome back!" Alpha greeted him.

Zordon regarded both robots with a polite nod. "Alpha; Tensou. It is good to see you both again. But I am afraid there is no time for pleasantries. I have experienced a vision of the future, and steps must be taken immediately to prepare."

"Ai-yi-yi!" Alpha exclaimed in his usual manner.

"What do you need us to do?" Tensou asked.

"Begin by contacting Gosei," Zordon replied. "I will require his assistance."

The robots regarded each other momentarily before setting about their task. No one had seen much of Gosei since Rita was sealed. The Earth Spirit had been a unique presence among Zordon’s disciples, and he had gone off on his own as soon as the war ended. Still, they both trusted Zordon’s judgment enough to do as instructed. 

Gosei responded quickly to Zordon’s summons, and the wizard explained his plan. He spoke in only the most nebulous terms of what he had foreseen, but insisted that it would be necessary to construct a second Command Center, and to implement in the Morphing Grid itself a system for backing up Ranger powers - allowing them to be recreated even if they were damaged or destroyed. That, evidently, was why Zordon needed Gosei’s help. He needed the power of a second Gridmaster to make his plan work. While the two of them delved into the Grid, the robots handled most of the manual labor. They scouted a location for the new Command Center in the outskirts of Harwood, settling on a natural cavern with a position deep in the mountain that would shield it from prying eyes. They installed all the equipment and defense systems it would need. And when all the preparations were complete, they reconvened at the original Command Center. 

“Everything is in order,” Zordon began. “However, there is no way to know for certain that the backup system will work until a Ranger team activates. Hopefully, we will have proof of this before it is too late. Gosei, I am appointing you to the second Command Center. You will be guardian to the Ranger Keys until the time comes to use them.”

“It would be my honor,” Gosei acknowledged.

“Tensou,” Zordon continued. “I would like you to accompany Gosei. You will act as his right hand, as Alpha has been mine.”

“As you wish,” was his timid response. 

Alpha approached him as soon as the briefing was concluded. The smaller robot wasn't exactly built for expressiveness, but to Alpha, his posture practically radiated sorrow. 

"So I guess this is goodbye," Tensou said glumly. 

"Not forever!" Alpha replied. "We may not be together all the time anymore, but between our own transmitters and the network linkup connecting the Command Centers, we'll be able to communicate as often as we want."

"I'll still miss you," Tensou replied. 

Alpha stooped to pat Tensou's back panel in a gesture of comfort. "I'll miss you too."

***

Life in the second Command Center involved an awful lot of waiting. Gosei spent a fair bit of time integrated with the cavern wall in what seemed to be some strange imitation of Zordon's plasma tube, but he was far from trapped there and left whenever he saw fit, leaving Tensou to manage things alone in his absence. It wasn't burdensome by any means, just lonely. Tensou kept himself busy with routine testing and maintenance on the Command Center's computers and defense systems, but the part of his day that he looked forward to most were the messages from Alpha. His friend had been true to his word, and contacted him as often as he could. They kept each other up to date on events both important and banal, from Gosei's development of the new Megaforce morpher series to the jackrabbit who had somehow found its way into Zordon's Command Center and run amok until Alpha finally chased it out.

Then there was, of course, the flurry of excited messages that accompanied the activation of the first modern Ranger teams, and along with them the creation of the first Ranger Keys; confirmation that the backup system did, in fact, function. That short-lived joy was tempered, though, as they observed the losses suffered first by the Mystic Force and then by the Samurai Rangers. Though neither of them met those teams, they shared the same honor and respect for them as they did for all Rangers, and mourned just as much when they fell. 

Shortly after the death of Samurai Red and the sealing of Master Xandred, things changed. Tensou sped over to the console as soon as he was notified of the incoming message, as he usually did. He was shocked by both the brevity of the message and its content. 

_The NASADA expedition accidentally freed Rita Repulsa. Zordon is preparing to activate the Power Coins._

Shortly thereafter, five new Ranger Keys materialized on the Command Center’s wall. Shortly after that, another message.

_There are Power Rangers! Here, in Angel Grove! No time to talk right now, but I can’t wait to tell you all about them!_

The messages were fewer and further between after that. Tensou could hardly blame Alpha for that; he had lived in Zordon’s Command Center during the first war against Rita’s forces, and he knew how busy his friend was with a new team of Rangers to attend to. But Alpha still took the time to message him whenever things got quiet, and brought him up to speed on everything that had happened since they last spoke. Sometimes the silence between messages was troublingly long, and sometimes the content worried Tensou. It frustrated him to know that there was nothing he could do to help. He and Gosei were under strict orders: Protecting the Keys was their first and only priority. 

One day, Tensou received a message from Alpha simply inquiring what year it was. 

Tensou told him, and added _Are you all right?_

 _I believe so,_ was the response. _It seems that Master Vile has caused some type of time displacement. We’re trying to fix it now._

 _A time displacement?_ Tensou ordered the Command Center’s computer to run a sensor sweep of the area. It came up normal. _Our systems didn’t pick up anything._

_Neither did ours._

Alpha’s updates over the next few weeks were uncharacteristically sparse. Tensou took to using the viewscreens to spy on Angel Grove whenever he could get away with it, just to keep tabs on what was going on. The watching and worrying finally ended with a message, this one directed to both Tensou and Gosei, rather than just Tensou’s private commline.

_The Command Center has been compromised. We are retreating immediately to the Power Chamber and will resume operations from there. Please do not be alarmed. Zordon and I are safe. We will make contact as soon as possible. Stand by._

The alarms began blaring, alerting the second Command Center to the destruction of the first.

***  
“A teleportation signal? From Angel Grove?” Tensou eyed the monitor curiously, even as he pressed the button to allow the signal through. Alpha hadn’t said anything about a visit. 

Lack of advance notification aside, Tensou was overjoyed to see that the column of light that appeared in the middle of the Command Center did indeed resolve into the shape of his friend. He wheeled over and offered an excited greeting, which was returned with much less enthusiasm. 

“I’m here because Zordon and I felt it best to give you the news in person,” Alpha said solemnly, regarding both Tensou and Gosei. “Lerigot has found a means of unlocking the time warp enough to allow Zordon passage back to Eltar. I will be going as well. Dimitria of Inquiris and my counterpart, Alpha 6, will take our place in the Power Chamber to support the Rangers.”

“This has been a long time in coming,” Gosei intoned. “How fortunate that Zordon will be able to see his home once more.”

“When do you leave?” Tensou asked.

“Immediately,” Alpha replied. “All the preparations are made. All that remains is to inform the Rangers.”

He sounded sad about that. Tensou understood; Alpha's messages had been quite clear about how dear the Rangers had become to him. 

“I wish you all the best on Eltar, my friend,” Tensou offered.

“Thank you,” Alpha said, sincerely. “And I will still try to keep in touch, whenever possible.”

Tensou's structure made it impossible for him to hug back, but Alpha embraced him nonetheless. The influence of his human friends, no doubt, but Tensou hardly minded. 

** *  
Zordon's order that Gosei and Tensou focus their efforts only on protecting the Keys was a burden; the siege of Eltar, Divatox's destruction of the Power Chamber., the looming threat of the United Alliance of Evil, and Astronema's invasion of Earth. They were forbidden to intervene in any of it. Only when what Zordon had foreseen had come to pass, only when the time was right, would they be permitted to act. Gosei was a Gridmaster, and Zordon's pupil. Tensou knew the Morphing Grid well enough to maintain its basic functions, but Gosei was able to manipulate and create with it in a way Tensou simply couldn't comprehend. As such, Gosei knew much more than Tensou did about when 'the right time' would come and what it would look like. To Tensou, having to watch and spin his wheels as the entire universe seemed to shake and crumble around them was simply frustrating. And worrying.

As was the ominous silence of Alpha 5. 

Alpha 6 had accompanied the combined Ranger team of Earth and KO-35 on the Astro Megaship. Tensou knew that much, though he wasn't nearly as friendly with the latter Alpha. (Although, the minor reprogramming he had gone through after being damaged in the Power Chamber's explosion had seemed to make his personality a bit more agreeable.) But Alpha 5 had been on Eltar when Dark Specter rained destruction on it. To the best of Tensou's knowledge, he had still been there when Zordon was captured. And no one had heard from him since.

Still, Tensou held on to hope as the strange energy wave wiped Earth and the worlds surrounding of all evil, and Gosei had announced with certainty that Zordon had chosen victory at the cost of his own life. He held on to hope as Earth and KO-35 rebuilt after the Alliance's devestation and took to the stars. As set after set of new Keys materialized along the walls, and as Gosei remained infuriatingly silent as to when it would finally be their turn. 

But it got to him, after awhile. Gosei must have noticed the change in him, the slight droop of his panels and slower turn of his wheels as he went about his duties, because he asked one day.

“What troubles you, Tensou?”

Tensou's circuits prickled, peeved at having been caught moping, but he supposed he should have expected as much.

“I think my friend is dead,” he confessed.

Gosei was integrated with the cave wall as usual, a form incapable of expression or movement, but the brief silence that followed Tensou's statement sounded suspiciously like a sage nod.

“Perhaps that is so,” Gosei said. “And if it is the truth, we can at least be assured that he died a hero in service to his allies. But I will tell you this. As certain as Zordon was of his own fate, he was loathe to condemn Alpha to it. If it was within Zordon's power to save him, I'm positive that he did so.”

The words helped a bit, but they didn't stop him from feeling lonely. 

** *

_...Tensou?_

A single word, a brief blip of data, so abrupt and random that Tensou stopped short, scanning his own processors to confirm that it wasn't just an errant fragment of a memory file.

_Tensou, are you out there?_

No, that was no memory glitch. It was Alpha! Tensou hopped up on his wheels and chirped aloud, surprised and delighted.

_Alpha! Is it really you? It's been so long! It's been years! Where were you? I thought-_

_To be perfectly honest...I don't know? I was deactivated for a long time, and my memory banks are fuzzy. I was on Eltar, but when I was reactivated I was on Earth, in storage._

Tensou thought about that, considered what Gosei had said about it all that time ago. Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps Zordon had devised some means of saving his assistant after all.

_Well, I'm happy to hear from you, regardless! Where are you now? Who reactivated you? Tell me everything!_

The conversation that followed was a long one. Alpha told Tensou how his old friend, one of Zordon's last Rangers, had tracked him down in the hope that he could repair the damage Thrax had done to the Morphing Grid. He was living in Adam and Rocky's martial arts studio now, he explained, helping out as always and trying to keep out of sight. Most importantly, he was safe. Tensou, in turn, filled Alpha in on all that he had missed while he was offline. They speculated about when and how Zordon's prophecy would finally be fulfilled and hoped that maybe, once it had, they could finally be together again without duty standing in the way. And even when they had nothing interesting to talk about, at least having a like processor just a commline away ended some of the monotony for both of them.

And one eventful day, Tensou simply _had_ to spare a few seconds to dash off a quick message.

_There are Power Rangers! Here, in Harwood! No time to talk right now, but I can’t wait to tell you all about them!_


End file.
